Saturday 2 March 2013

A Sarsen on The Line

To the south of the road between Stanton St Bernard and Alton Barnes on the perimeter of what was the Alton Barnes Airfield I noticed a large sarsen stone which I hadn't noticed before. As this is on the route that I believe the sarsens took from the Marlborough Downs to Stonehenge I went to investigate.


Approaching it I nearly fell down a set of hidden concrete steps. I then realised the sarsen was capping a circular hole in the ground. Obviously part of the defences of the Second World War airfield. It seems it has only recently been placed there by this picture and description I found online, which suggests it may be the remains of an Alan-Williams turret filled in with sarsens from the field.




The site is recorded on Pastscape at http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=1422290
and can be found on the  Defence of Britain database as http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/dob/ai_full_r.cfm?refno=6470  
There is an excellent Google Earth kmz downloadable of the Defences of Britain from http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/dob/download.cfm






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